


show yourself, destroy your fears, release your mask

by janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (NOT IN A GOOD WAY), (YES BETWEEN JAIME AND CERSEI), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Ass-Kicking, BAMF Catelyn, Don't Like Don't Read, Enemies to Friends, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Jaime Lannister Has Issues, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Catelyn Stark/Ned Stark, Past Abuse, Sibling Incest, The Drift (Pacific Rim), Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 15:19:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17645300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: “What — oh,” he says, with a self-deprecating tone she never heard from him. “Sorry. I’m adjusted to — to her. I guess I chased the RABIT, didn’t I?”“You did,” she says, but without reproach. “And I think I owe you a few apologies after we’re done here.”“Wait, youwhat?”“Listen, there’s a damned category four outside here and I can’t waste time telling you that looking inside your head on one side was fucking worrying and on the other made me realize I had pegged you completely wrong. Now, we can do that later like civilized people or we can fuck this up and we can die in what, twenty minutes? I don’t know, but I’d pick the first if I were you. And after what I’ve seen, I have zero reserves about drifting with someone who’s obviously way more competent than he let on, so… are you getting your arse in gear or not? Because we’ve got a kaiju to kill.”Or: in which Catelyn Tully isn't looking forward to drifting with Jaime Lannister whatsoever, but what she sees in the drift might change her mind.(PS: this fic hasnegativetakes on J/C. I warned you.)





	show yourself, destroy your fears, release your mask

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beesreadbooks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beesreadbooks/gifts).



> *waves* hi. So I might have spent a month in a pseudo writer's block situation and I couldn't finish anything, then I was answering prompts on tumblr about [who'd drift with whom in a pacific rim au](http://janiedean.tumblr.com/post/182034686908/in-a-pacific-rim-au-who-drifts-with-whom) and the lovely beesreadbooks went in the comments 'Now I have a need for a fic in which Cat and Jaime are force to drift. They think they’re going to hate it but *pause for suspense* THEY DONT. Friendship and asskicking ensues'. I was like 'okay nothing I should be working on is cooperating let's just go with this and see if it does'. IT DID SO THANKS FOR MAKING ME FINISH SOMETHING hopefully I can finish everything else now.
> 
> Now, **further warning** as if I haven't done it enough but just in case: drifting = seeing inside people's heads. As it was, I had to reference J/C because it's part of the fic *and* of Jaime's character and there's nothing in this that wasn't extrapolated from canon. J/C is tagged as a main relationship because it *is* a main relationship AND it's not a minor part of the fic *and* it's discussed in extremely negative terms (see the tags for explanations but tldr I don't think what they did in canon when they were kids was *experimenting* and I'm not changing my mind on the topic), but I still felt like it was the case to tag it in case people who want to avoid that kind of content could know it was a main part of the fic. Don't like don't read, I warned on the tags, on the summary and here. I said my piece.
> 
> (Sorry for the long-ass disclaimer but given that I got people complaining last time I did it for the same reasons, I figured I'd make sure it was 100% clear. Thanks.)
> 
> That said: nothing belongs to me except the adaptation, the title is from Queen and I'll saunter back downwards trying to finish other things now. /o\

“ _Excuse me_?” Catelyn tries to protest, but from the way Stannis is looking at both her and Lannister, she knows there’s not going to be much excusing going on here.

“Yeah,” Lannister objects as well, “I don’t think I —”

“Listen, there’s _nothing_ else to discuss here,” Stannis interrupts him. “Lannister, your sister showed up so drunk, she’s in no shape or form to pilot and it’s not even the first time, and there’s no bloody way I can send her in a jaeger with _anyone_ , because she’d just be a danger to herself and anyone else around her. Tully, your husband is currently incapacitated with _both_ broken legs and there’s a, oh, _level four kaiju alert_ in the span of the next fifty minutes and you’re the only two people I have right now who can handle it because you’re not, let me remind you, _recruits_ , and all the other veterans I have are either _not in King’s Landing_ or bedridden or unavailable, so either you two drift together or King’s Landing goes down along with us. And I know you don’t like each other, but I’m sure _one_ of you can give the other a clean handshake, so suit the bloody hell up and go. It’s either you or we’re all dead. Off you go,” he says, and dismisses the two of them.

Catelyn, who can’t sadly argue with _any_ of that speech, replies a _yes sir_ that she doesn’t feel at all and leaves the room, Lannister trailing behind her.

“What,” he asks, “is drifting with me _such_ a hateful thing to do?”

“As if you’d consider drifting with anyone but your precious sister, Lannister,” she retorts. “Anyway, he gave me orders, I’ll do my duty. See you in twenty minutes.”

“Right, right,” he says, flipping her off, and turns the other side in the hallway.

 _Shallow prick_ , she thinks, not for the first time, and runs toward her own room.

Fuck, she wishes Ned hadn’t gotten hurt during their last bout with a category three a few days ago, but Stannis was right — she, Lannister and his sister are the only experienced pilots around and if Cersei is drunk, _well_ , there aren’t many choices.

And if anything Lannister is good at his job — he and Cersei have the highest kaiju kill count in the entire Shatterdrome after Rhaegar Targaryen and Arthur Dayne, so however much is his merit and however much is hers, well, at least he’s not there to waste her time. Still, the idea of sharing a jaeger with a guy whose fame is tied to how at seventeen, after killing a category four along with Aerys Targaryen, broke their connection knowing that it would kill his co-pilot, brought the jaeger back and from then on only drifted with his twin sister… well, it gives her the creeps.

She shakes her head, walks inside her room, puts on her suit, takes a few deep breaths and heads off for Lannister’s jaeger — his brother is most likely there already to oversee things and make sure their neural handshake works out, and she’s not going to be late if they have a category four to handle in, shit, forty minutes.

Well. She _can_ give him a clean handshake, _that_ she knows for sure. Maybe if he’s good enough to do it for her, too, _maybe_ they’ll manage to do this and go back to ignoring each other after. If it’s not a good prospect, Cat doesn’t know how to call it.

——

“Right,” Tyrion Lannister says in the comms five minutes later as they both have taken their positions and put on the Pons helmets. “You’ve got to be out in ten minutes maximum. If one of you gives the other a clean handshake and no one chases any RABITs it’s all going to be set in a few and you can be out and about. Are you good?”

“As good as it gets,” his brother grins, and damn but if Catelyn doesn’t _hate_ how he’s always smirking as if he knows something no one else does.

“I’m good,” she cuts things short. “Go ahead.”

“Okay. Drop in confirmed, initiating pilot protocol.”

A moment later, her uncle replies from the other comm. “Brightroar ready and aligned for neural handshake. Cat, Lannister?”

“I’m fine,” she says.

“Better than,” he grins, still so _fake_ , and then —

“Starting fifteen seconds,” Tyrion says, “fourteen, thirteen…”

“Come on,” Lannister says, “are you really _this_ disgusted to be riding with me?”

“It’d be way nicer if I could trust you one hundred per cent,” she huffs, “but never mind.”

For a moment, he looks like he’s _disappointed_ , but then —

“Neural handshake initiating,” Brightroar’s AI says as Tyrion counts to zero. Catelyn isn’t even that thrilled to go around in a _golden_ jaeger that’s… pretty much as Lannister-tacky as it gets, but never mind _that_.

_Neural interface drift initiating. Right hemisphere calibrated. Left hemisphere calibrated. Ready to activate._

Catelyn takes a deep, _deep_ breath.

Then she closes her eyes and concentrates on giving Lannister the clean handshake, hoping against hope that he does the same so if they’re actually _not_ compatible as she _knows_ they might manage this mess anyway —

And then it goes pear-shaped.

Or better: she had expected Lannister to pay her the same courtesy.

Instead, she’s literally thrown into _his goddamned memories_ that he’s kind of obviously trying to hide but not succeeding, no, _why_ , and for a moment she wants to scream at him to just do his job and stabilize the damned handshake —

But then she actually _sees_.

And —

 

 

_She sees Lannister breaking down in tears when hearing his mother died in a kaiju attack just after delivering his brother, she sees him trying to convince Cersei that their brother’s birth wasn’t a bad omen just because it was the same day as the first kaiju attack on the Westerlands_

 

 _(_ just before she drags him to her room and locks the door and reminds him that he promised they’d try how that thing their dogs made would feel like and how he says yes even if he doesn’t really want to _)_

 

 _and she sees him doing variations of that same thing for years as he encourages Tyrion to go for the science if he wants to, and then she sees him volunteering for the kaiju recruitment program at thirteen because his father decided both he and Cersei had the skills, and he sees how Cersei passes half of the screening because she was copying his answers but gets higher scores because he has issues with how the letters move across the page and he never quite realized how they aren’t switched in certain words, she sees him paired with Aerys Targaryen when he was barely fifteen just because for some reason he scored high enough in certain areas to assume they were compatible and she watches in horror as Lannister notices that the man went half-insane from piloting on his own for years and how that last time they drifted together Lannister_ saw _that Aerys was about to turn the jaeger on the city after defeating the kaiju and that there was no way to bring him back because he just_ knew _and so he had to break the connection and take control and Aerys couldn’t handle it and he knew there was the risk, but he couldn’t make Aerys destroy the entire city or be complicit in it —_

 _And then he brings back the jaeger on his own and no one asks him what happened but everyone looks at him suspiciously and then his sister whispers in his ear that of course it happened because he drifted with someone who wasn’t_ her _, when they were born to be together and were going to die together, and he never drifts with anyone else since but_ he _is the one handling most of the weight when piloting, Cat can see it, she can see everything, and_ why didn’t he ever tell, why wouldn’t he, why _—_

 

 

She blinks.

She doesn’t see the light that should signal that the link has been established.

Oh, _fuck_ , he can’t be chasing the RABIT now, not when she gave him the clean handshake, not when they have no time —

She’s in the room he shares with Cersei. The calendar on the wall says that it’s… well. Yesterday night, most likely.

“What do you mean,” he asks, his face ashen pale, “that you’re _marrying Rhaegar Targaryen_?”

She shrugs as if she doesn’t have a care in the world. “I meant what I said. Did you think I only ever talked to _you_?”

 _Well_ , Catelyn thinks, _given that he only talks to you or your brother, maybe he did_. Wait, is she defending him?

“But you said —”

“Oh, now you’re telling me it’s _my_ fault?”

“His wife died six months ago!” Lannister — _Jaime_ — protests, looking like he’s about to cry.

“Well, he was glad to find a shoulder to cry on,” Cersei replies, shrugging. “Come on, did you really think _we_ could go on forever? Someone would have found out, better to end it now that no one else knows.”

“But — does this mean —”

“We did test for compatibility,” Cersei smiles. Catelyn feels her stomach turn over on itself. “It’s higher than the scores he had with Elia and almost the same as he has with Arthur, and Arthur has to go to Dorne in a couple of weeks.” Her grin turns wider. “Of course _it means_ , don’t be silly now.”

“Cersei, you said it was just _the two of us_ , I can’t drift with other people if you’re the only one —”

“Well, then you’ve had an honorable career. Jaime, please, this is nonsense. We’re done, I’m marrying Rhaegar the moment he’s back from Dragonstone, _he_ asked and I’m not going to risk something I’ve wanted for a very, very long time. And now I’ll celebrate, if it’s all the same to you.”

Then she leaves, presumably to find some celebratory alcohol, which is most likely the reason why she was drunk when Stannis called them in for the emergency category three.

And he stays there, staring at the door, his hands shaking and desolation painted on his face, and suddenly Cat realizes that it’s only been five years since he and Aerys drifted that last time, and he has always drifted with his sister since and only with Aerys before, and if she thinks of what she had seen in the drift _before_ —

“Jaime?” She asks, hoping that they’re not too late.

He looks up at her. “What — _oh_ ,” he says, with a self-deprecating tone she never heard from him. “Sorry. I’m adjusted to — to _her_. I guess I chased the RABIT, didn’t I?”

“You did,” she says, but without reproach. “And I think I owe you a few apologies after we’re done here.”

“Wait, you _what_?”

“Listen, there’s a damned category _four_ outside here and I can’t waste time telling you that looking inside your head on one side was fucking _worrying_ and on the other made me realize I had pegged you completely wrong. Now, we can do that later like civilized people or we can fuck this up and we can die in what, twenty minutes? I don’t know, but I’d pick the first if I were you. And after what I’ve seen, I have zero reserves about drifting with someone who’s obviously _way_ more competent than he let on, so… are you getting your arse in gear or not? Because we’ve got a kaiju to kill.”

He _stares_ at her with those bright green eyes, as if he can’t process what she just said —

“Shit,” he says, “you _mean_ that?”

“Do I have to say it again?” She huffs, but no unkindly.

He stares at her another long, long moment. But then —

“No,” he shakes his head, and a moment later the room is filled with light and she opens her eyes and she’s back in the pod and —

“Neural handshake strong and holding,” Tyrion says, sounding relieved. “Well, good, because I was about to call it a night for all of us. You good?”

Cat breathes in, _feeling_ that drift, but — it’s _not bad at all_? She can feel that he’s half-terrified of drifting with someone who’s not his sister for the first time since Aerys, but the handshake is actually _very_ strong, and she can feel that he’s relieved that she hadn’t somehow thought ill of him the moment she learned he and his sister were, _well_ , what they were.

“I’m good,” she says, and thinks, _Lannister, if I have to think ill of anyone it’s going to be her, not you_.

He glances at her for a moment before looking ahead. “I’m great,” he says. “You can let us go.” And then he thinks, _guess you’re less stuck-up than I imagined, Tully, but it’s appreciated_.

That sounded genuine, though.

Like he actually _doesn’t mean it_.

She grins. “Let’s kill this one, should we?”

“On it,” he grins back.

——

Thing is: they kill the category four in maybe five minutes.

Which is way less than she had pictured it would take — it’s the toughest category so far, the fastest kill for one of them was twenty minutes and it had been Rhaegar and Arthur —, but Lannister is indeed _extremely_ competent, and apparently sharing the neural load instead of actually doing most of the work makes him even more efficient, and when he thought, _if you handle covering the blind spot we’d leave I can off him with the sword_ , instead of asking _what sword_ , she had just thought back, _okay, fine, whatever you say._

Then — same as she knew everything he was thinking right _then —_ she had found out that his jaeger has an arm that turns into a sword, if he chooses to unleash it, but she hears him thinking that he never used it because it required using up too much neural load and he couldn’t afford it before.

But she can feel that he’s actually having _fun_ as he slices that kaiju's head off with one single strike while Cat makes sure the monster doesn’t rip open their flank.

“Show-off,” she tells him as the beast falls back inside the Blackwater bay, but she can feel that she’s speaking fondly, and _seriously_?

“Never said I wasn’t,” he grins back, but she can feel that he’s excited the way she used to be as a kid when her uncle would bring her to ride rollercoasters in Riverrun, way before kaijus even showed up in their lives.

She doesn’t tell him that they need to talk.

She thinks he already knows.

——

“You know,” she tells him later as she joins him inside his room, he let her in when she knocked, “if your sister thinks that she can do her job the way she usually _supposedly_ does when not drifting with you, she’s a complete idiot.”

“… That was not what I figured you’d say first,” he replies, sounding taken aback.

“Lannister, you showed me about _everything_. It wasn’t a partnership where you did half of the work. You did what, four fifths of it? No one else is going to settle for sharing the neural load that way.”

He shrugs. “Well, she seems to think Targaryen will, so what do I know?”

She shakes her head and tentatively puts a hand on his shoulder. “You should tell people,” she whispers.

“ _What_?”

“Why you did something you’d know would kill Aerys. It was for a good cause, why did you let anyone believe the contrary?”

“Did anyone ask me or did they all just assume I let him die because I hated him? Well, I _did_ hate him, but — I wouldn’t have done that, if he hadn’t threatened to destroy the entire city. And everyone just went and assumed I _let_ it happen because I wanted a promotion or _whatever_ when I had to _be in that man’s head_ for two years. Nice, right?”

She remembers everything she had seen in Jaime’s head concerning the experience of drifting with Aerys Targaryen and she feels like throwing up. She sits down next to him, not moving her hand.

“No,” she agrees. “I can — well. I saw some of it. But — _she_ didn’t ask either, did she?”

“No,” he confirms. “But it didn’t seem important at that time. Not as much as, well, the rest.” He visibly shudders as she grips his shoulder harder.

She swallows. “Listen,” she says, “it’s — not my business, but. I saw… _most things_ ,” she goes on.

“And?”

“ _And_ , whatever it is you two had going on, that… didn’t seem so equal, to me.”

“It didn’t seem _what_?”

“I don’t know,” she says, “ _she_ always took the initiative, the way it looked like. Until you did, but that was when she, uh, actively tried to _convince you to let her see your answers at the screening tests_.”

He flinches. “Maybe,” he admits.

“Well,” she goes on, “what I saw in the beginning —”

“ _Don’t_ ,” he says at once. “I mean, _that_ — that is — I don’t really remember it.”

Wait, _what_?”

“You _do_. I saw it. It’s _there._ ”

He shakes his head. “I really _don’t_. I mean, I know it happened. But — I really can’t recall the details. Actually, I can’t recall anything from the moment I locked the door.”

“But I _saw_ it,” she protests. Wait, if Catelyn saw it but he _doesn’t remember it_ — “I — Lannister —”

“I think you can call me Jaime, _all things considered_ ,” he jokes back, but it’s… not really heartfelt.

“ _Jaime_ ,” she says, “if it’s there but you don’t remember it, I think you might not _want_ to. And if you don’t — sorry to say, this doesn’t seem healthy to me. Okay, it wasn’t before, but now it’s just — worse.”

“I — guess it’s not,” he sobs, and wait, is he trying to _not_ cry in front of her? “But I guess it doesn’t matter. I mean, whatever it is we did, she’s off with Rhaegar or _whatever_ and I’m here without a drifting partner when piloting jaegers is about the one thing I’m good at, when they’ll never take me in administration because my scores in the written texts that weren’t multiple choice are abysmal and _hers_ were so much better, and what does she even care? Fuck, I was an idiot —”

“For one,” Catelyn interrupts him, “you _could_ just tell Stannis you might need someone to give you a crash course in managing dyslexia, he wouldn’t say no. And you _could_ also tell him how your sister got in — I guess you won’t, but it’s up to you. That said, who says you can’t drift with anyone else?”

“Wait, do you see any volunteers?”

She huffs. “Jaime, for — have you missed the part where my _usual drifting partner_ is benched for the next six months and never wanted that job in the first place regardless of how good he was at it?”

“What, Ned _hates_ it?”

“Always has, but he did it for duty, of course. Anyway, if I told him that I found a permanent substitute when it comes to piloting jaegers, he’d about cry in relief, and it seemed to me like we were good out there, weren’t we?”

He shrugs. “Sure we were. I mean, honestly? It felt better with you than with anyone else I drifted with. And you know it, don’t you?”

“As in, you think we’re actually compatible regardless of the clean handshake? Yeah, I thought the same.” She takes a breath. “So, well, if your sister doesn’t want you there anymore, fine, we can do it together. I don’t think I’d mind.”

“You — wouldn’t?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “No, I think we’d do great. And — I was wrong about you. I really was.”

He stares at her with the face of someone who had expected anything but _that_ offer. Then he grins, but it’s _real_ this time, not the usual posturing. “All right,” he says. “All right, you’ve got a deal. Next time you don’t need to give me the clean handshake, though.”

“Fine,” she agrees, “but since you about ran here the moment we were done, how about you come to my room and get some of the dinner I salvaged?”

“Isn’t your husband there?”

“I think he’d like to hear _why_ Aerys ended up like he did. And it’s not like I ever forbid him to have friends over.”

The way he looks at her, you’d think she just handed him ten years’s worth of birthday presents, and she tries to not think about how _sad_ it is, in retrospective.

“Okay,” he agrees. “Fine. I’m coming. Fuck, if _Ned Stark_ gives me the benefit of the doubt, this is really the wildest fucking day in existence.”

She doesn’t take the bait as he goes to grab his jacket.

After all, he wasn’t absolutely wrong, was he? But then again, she _does_ have time to make up to him some.

And possibly to help him realize that he deserved way, way better than his sister.

 

 

_Three months later_

 

 

“Holy _shit_ ,” Tyrion tells them as they get out of Brightroar, “have you just pulverized Rhaegar and Arthur’s record?”

“We did _what_?” Catelyn asks, taking her helmet off. She’s not exactly keeping track of who is beating what record.

Tyrion looks at her and Jaime like they’re both two complete idiots. “Oh, I don’t know, those two had the record for highest number of kaiju killed off in one single attack with the least backup. As in, they killed ten with just Oberyn and Ellaria backing them. You two have just gone _on your own_ like two completely reckless idiots and killed fucking _fifteen_ before anyone could send you backup, that’s what happened.”

Catelyn, who has zero use for being a record holder, just shrugs, taking in the information. But Jaime, who has just put an arm around her shoulder, is openly gloating. “Well,” Jaime says, “I guess I’ll have to actually thank Stannis for having found the winning team of this shatterdrome, won’t I?”

“As far as _you_ are concerned, most likely,” Tyrion says, sounding utterly serious, but then again as far as Catelyn knows, there’s not much love lost between him and Cersei. “Anyway, you two are never _not_ partnering again, as far as I’m concerned and as far as Stannis is concerned. You can go take a rest or whatever, you earned it.”

He leaves, muttering something about needing to try and pair Rhaegar with Connington since Cersei is _not_ compatible with him as much as she thought she’d be and Arthur isn’t coming back for a while.

“Now _that_ is interesting,” Jaime deadpans, but he doesn’t sound sorry at all.

“What, that they’re not _that_ compatible?”

“Oh, that was bloody obvious. But it could still work with a clean handshake and if it doesn’t, well, I suppose Cersei figured Rhaegar would also enjoy taking on an extra load of work he didn’t need, and she figured wrong.”

“No doubt about _that_ ,” Catelyn sighs. “And nice to hear that you realized it was entirely unfair that _you_ would do it.”

“Yeah, _well_ , never too late,” he shrugs, and she doesn’t ask him how it’s going with the only resident psychologist they have left who is coincidentally her uncle — Jaime has been seeing him since the week after they drifted together for the first time, but she never asked either of them and he does seem to be doing slightly better. If anything, when she drifts with him these days, it doesn’t feel as painful as it did the first time, and she’s never going to discuss with him how she has _indeed_ noticed that every single memory including her or her relatives or Ned is in the group that doesn’t just _feel_ negative the moment you feel it.

“ _Anyway_ ,” she goes on, “unless we get dragged back to the field, but we _shouldn’t_ , my brother is doing game night as usual.”

“Interesting. And what’s up today?”

“That one game where you have to know random facts for different categories. Fancy coming? Ned is absolutely against playing with me and I need someone to cover my back when it comes to sports and entertainment, I never win because I flunk those two all the time.”

“Imagine that,” he grins back, “the only two categories other than history that I excel in. Okay, sure, I’m up for it. Who’s there?”

“Edmure, my uncle, Ned, Connington, Robert Baratheon, Jon Arryn, Oberyn Martell and Ashara Dayne, I think.”

“Wow, no one I should avoid, too? Guess it’s a sign of destiny.”

“Then you’re _totally_ with me. Two hours from now on at my uncle’s?”

“Deal.” He slaps her back maybe a bit _too_ forcefully, but it’s enthusiasm and it’s — nice to see it, actually? Before, he only seemed to show emotions other than disdain only to his siblings. Now she thinks she sees why his brother _does_ think that high of him.

She smiles back.

“Should I tell your _husband_ that you two are being dangerously sickening?”

She can feel Jaime’s good mood vanish at once (they are still feeling the drift, after all) as he sighs and looks at his sister, who’s standing in front of them and looking at Catelyn as if she wishes she could tear her hair out.

Jaime opens his mouth, but she thinks she can handle it. “No,” Catelyn says, “because he knows I would _never_ , he knows we’re _friends_ and he actually has dinner with us every other night, so if you tried to tell him such a thing he’d probably laugh in your face. Also, Ned _hates_ piloting and he was only too happy to go back to research, so it’s not as if he’s jealous or anything. That said, since I also noticed he might have a thing for that new recruit from Tarth who’s in _my_ training group —”

“Hey,” Jaime interrupts, “I thought I had been sneaky about —”

“Please, you’re obvious and the only reason she hasn’t realized is that she’s more oblivious than you. Anyway, as I was saying, I was actually going to invite you over for a guest lesson or something so I’d get her to talk to you, we’ll see, but point is, I _really_ doubt I’d try to set you up with someone if I wanted to get into your pants now, wouldn’t I?”

“ _Would you_ ,” Jaime asks, “because I’d owe you until my next reincarnation if you did.”

“Please,” she waves him off, “you can pay it back by keeping on being reliable in the field _and_ having my back on the sports and entertainment questions.”

“You’re totally on.”

“ _Excuse me_?” Cersei interrupts them, again. Catelyn figures she’s not to happy that they’re pretty much ignoring her. “You have a thing for _the recruit from Tarth_?”

Jaime’s eyes suddenly turn a colder shade of green, or so it seems, and Catelyn feels a bout of anger coming up from nowhere raising through her chest. “I thought you gave up on that being _your_ business, Cersei. And if you think I’m drifting with you at any point whatsoever, forget it. I think I like things a lot better _now_.”

“You know what,” Catelyn says before it can get ugly, “you can just chill at mine and Ned’s while we get ready, how about that?”

“ _You know what_ , I’m down with it,” he says, and Cersei does try to get them to wait but he follows Catelyn toward the elevator and she presses the button for her floor just before Cersei can actually get in.

A moment later, that anger she was feeling but wasn’t _hers_ changes into relief.

“Hell,” Jaime says, “ _that_ was a save. I might owe you.”

“Just concentrate on winning that game when we’re up.”

He bites down on his lip. “Did you mean it when you said —”

“That I can try and get you to talk with Tarth? Sure. As long as you don’t make me find anyone else to drift with, because I think we’re a pretty good arrangement.”

He laughs, winking at her. “Oh, you bet. No one else I’d rather let into my head until I sort my shit out, at least, and according to your uncle it’s gonna be years at this rate.”

She puts a hand on his arm.

“I should hope we figure out how to defeat those beasts once and for all before you do, but I’m game, too.”

“Good,” he smiles back, and it’s not really hard to return it.

Not at all.

 

 

End.


End file.
